With the improvement in the design, construction and manufacture of glass and plastic beverage bottles and particularly the advent of replaceable bottle caps, many consumers frequently drink such beverages directly from the bottles. As a result, such bottles not only function as a means of packaging the beverage product, but are also now used as a server for direct consumption of the beverage.
As a result, within the last several years, several devices have been developed which attempt to provide improved insulating properties to the otherwise poor insulating capabilities of glass and plastic beverage bottles. Included among these devices is a flexible insulating jacket in which the beverage bottle is carried as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,197,890 and a pair of mating hollow modules in which is carried refrigerant material, the modules being fastened together to surround the body of a bottle as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,281,520. Further, U.S. Pat. No. 4,338,795 discloses an insulating and cooling receptacle into which a beverage bottle is inserted having an upper hollow collar containing permanent refrigerant such as "Blue Ice" which surrounds the shoulders and a portion of the neck of the bottle.
However, such prior art bottle insulating devices are comprised of a multiplicity of parts which attempt to surround the outward surface area of the bottle. Also, as described above, many prior art devices require either activation of permanent refrigerant materials contained within the construction of the insulator body by precooling of the insulator or the addition of refrigerant materials, such as ice, to the insulator.
In addition, many of the prior art insulators do not permit direct consumption of the beverage from the bottle enclosed within the insulator. Hence, the bottle must be removed from the insulator thereby disturbing the insulating conditions which existed within the insulator.
Moreover, none of the prior art insulating devices take advantage of the outward configuration of a beverage bottle as an efficient and useful means of holding the bottle within the insulating device. Specifically, soft drink and light-alcohol content beverage bottles include a neck ring which carries multiple threads or a single thread depending on whether the cap is a replaceable, screw-on cap or a non-replaceable, crown cap. As a result of the presence of the neck ring on the bottle, the bottle itself can be carried or held by gripping the bottle about the neck ring. None of the beverage bottle insulating devices of the prior art have been constructed so as to suspend the beverage bottle within the insulator by gripping of the bottle about or adjacent to the bottle neck ring.
Hence, prior to the present invention, a need existed for a refrigerant-free beverage bottle insulator which can be hand-held in order to permit direct consumption of the beverage from the bottle held within the insulator. Further, a need existed for a beverage bottle insulator designed to permit easy insertion and removal of the beverage bottle through a bottle insulator design which takes advantage of the configurational characteristics of most beverage bottles.